1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to portable structures for supporting infants, and in one aspect to such structures for training and assisting infants in walking.
2. Description of the Related Art
Certain prior art devices for assisting an infant to walk or increase mobility by using his or her legs generally include wheeled carts which suspend the child in a lower-body harness or other suspension means in order for the child's legs to reach the travelling surface. These devices are generally used more for entertainment purposes than for training the child to walk. To the extent the currently available art is used for training purposes, they do not require the attention of an adult, and as a result, both direct interaction with and attention to the child is lacking.
A variety of prior art patents disclose an adult-operated child suspension means for enabling, teaching, or assisting infants to walk. Certain prior art baby-walking aids that provide overhead suspension means rely upon the child's manually grasping the apparatus for support. U.S. Pat. No. 2,956,616 describes an apparatus operated overhead by an adult holding with two hands a first set of gripping handles whereby the child manually supports itself by grasping a second set of gripping handles located at the bottom ends of a single piece of rigid sheet material.
Other prior art baby-walking aids provide support for the child by means of a support or harness attached to the body of the child. U.S. Pat. No. 2,108,566 describes a staff-controlled baby walker whereby the body of the child is supported by a harness and a rigid staff, which rigid staff is held by an adult operator in a position vertically superior to the child. U.S. Pat. No. 3,237,939 describes an overhead baby walking aid comprising a pair of hand holds to be grasped by a child's hands and finger grips for a single hand of an adult operator to guide the child suspended by a body harness attached to the walking aid.
The prior art also discloses wheeled rigid structures that a child stands in or sits in and in which the child alone may move about.